Our daughter Jade wanted a digital camera for Christmas. When asked why she wanted one, her reply was because she wanted to make a photo blog. It made me feel good to hear that, but on the other hand, she's only 8 years old. So after a bit of thought, Santa decided to look for a relatively cheap digital camera that was easy for her to use. This morning when she woke up, THERE under the Christmas tree, was a digital camera for Jade.
After Jade opened all her presents, I took a look at her camera and started to set it up for her. I changed the language to English and looked at the different settings she had to choose from. I then went to take a photo and it wouldn't shoot. ??? I looked at the screen and it said there was no memory SD card inserted... Way to go Santa! You forgot to get her a SD card to go with the camera! So after some breakfast and a bit of clean up, we went to a friend's electronic store and bought a 2GB SD card for her new camera. Jade was all set to go.
I had planned on taking the family up to the mountains where I previously went to show them the yakkosou flowers I photographed before. We walked around the park for a bit taking photos of everything we thought was interesting and Jade took quite a few photos. I have yet to look at what she took but we'll probably get to that later on tonight. Here are some of the photos I took while we walked around.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 135mm, 1/40 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Acorn
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0 @ 200mm, 1/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Nuts For Nuts
My wife Hikari and our daughter Jade love to look for acorns and nuts of the sort. I guess if you find these at the right time of year, you can cook them and mix them with your rice for a meal. They've never gathered these for that; they just think they're cute and look for lots of them. I, on the other hand, always think, "I wonder how good they taste?".
This kind of reminds me of some thing that's really not related to this but I'll share it with you anyway. When I was a kid, I used to buy candy called "Laughy Taffy". Laughy Taffy wrappers always had jokes written on the insides. One joke that I remember, but never understood was,"Peanuts are neither peas nor nuts. They're actually small rodents." I've NEVER understood that joke.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Shooting the Scenery
I was shooting on Aperture Priority and forgot to set my ISO down so this photo was a bit blown out after we emerged from the forest.
I didn't give Jade any pointers on how to take photos. I figured to just let her go to town and maybe throw in some advice here an there when we look at the photos later. I can't tell you how happy I am that she's interested in photography, but I don't want to scare her away by telling how to take her own photos. She's young and with time, I think she'll come to understand what kinds of photos she wants to take. Who knows? If she really gets into it, I may buy a new camera and let her use this D60. :)
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/150 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Enjoying the Scenery
It was sprinkling rain most of the time we were out. Under the forest canopy the rain wasn't really that much of a bother. But out here in the open, I didn't want to get my camera wet so we didn't stay here for too long.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/15 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Rurikakesu
(Lidth's Jay)
Again, I was using Aperture Priority at f/5.6 and for some reason it took this photo at 1/15 sec which was kind of bright but not blown out at all. If I did it with manual settings, I would at least have set the shutter speed to 1/30 sec. Either way, this was the best photo I got of this bird despite the slow shutter speed. Yay for vibration reduction.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 -- EXIF
Lunch Time
I've searched the web to try to find the name of this spider but I have always turned up empty handed. My wife's uncle tells me that there are no poisonous spiders here in Amami but this thing just looks nasty. I hate spiders...
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 68mm, 1/100 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 -- EXIF
Tsurusoba
I only know the names of some of the plants and flowers here in Amami by their names in Amami dialect. They call this flower, "tsurusoba".
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 200mm, 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Hibiscus Ready to Bloom
Although it's winter here in Amami, some flowers bloom year round. During the winter time here, you don't see as many hibiscus flowers as you would in the summer.
Nikon D60, Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6 @ 55mm, 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800 -- EXIF
Who is Car?
Car's Park didn't have any good rides, just my Honda Z. lol I know my grammar, spelling and punctuation isn't that great, but I get a giggle when I see Japanese Engrish like this. :)
While writing this post, I realized that next month on the 7th is this blog's 1 year anniversary. It didn't come as a shock but it did grip me. So, I'm thinking of what I'm going to do for an anniversary post for my blog. I'm still not sure, but I'm thinking about it...
3 comments:
Anniversary-post idea: Maybe have a guest writer/photographer.... perhaps someone, say, in between the ages of 7 and 9.... maybe to mix it up a bit, maybe a mixed-culture female? I know it's a highly-specific suggestion, but you should be able to find a match somewhere in that great Amami metropolis....
Tsurusoba is Polygonum chinense (or Persicaria chinensis - these things keep having their names changed). Soba of course is buckwheat, but I doubt that the tiny seeds of this are worth eating.
The spider looks like one I saw frequently in Japan, I was told it is called jorogumo, which Google tells me is Nephila clavata or golden orb spider. I _do_ like spiders and was most impressed by this fellow (probably a lady, actually) and it huge and very strong web !
Good luck to Jade and her photography: I think Jeffrey's suggestion is excellent.
Well, she really wants to do her own blog so we'll see how it goes. She's easily embarrassed about some things so I'll let her decided.
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Keep the language clean please. I have family that see this. Tell us what part of the world you're in.